


Disaster Barton

by julietterocher



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Domestic Avengers, Domestic Fluff, Gen, Human Disaster Clint Barton, Team as Family, slight injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:06:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25557061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/julietterocher/pseuds/julietterocher
Summary: Clint is a disaster. This is a surprise to no-one.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	Disaster Barton

Natasha had been painting her nails. She liked painting her nails. It was soothing, it meant she had a ready made excuse not to solve anyone’s problems for a whole hour at a time, and at the end, she had shiny, colourful nails that didn’t serve any discernible purpose other than making her feel good. The colour was bright and childish, the yellow almost fluorescent. And now one hand was done and the other was not, because of Clint. Because he was incapable of looking after himself for more than ten seconds when left alone.  
He was bleeding from two separate head wounds. One by his temple and shallow, and the second further back, slightly deeper, and full of chips of glass. 

‘’What did you even do?’ Natasha unzipped the first aid kit that she kept mostly to use on Clint, and dug around for the tweezers. He pulled a face at her as she tipped his head towards the light. 

‘’You know those glass front cabinets in my apartment? I was taking them down and it just- I got distracted and it all went wrong.’’ 

‘’How does taking a cabinet down go this wrong?’’

~

Tony didn’t get many phone calls, especially in the middle of the night, and almost none of them went through to an actual phone instead of Jarvis. Mostly the few calls he did get were just from Pepper and occasionally Rhodey when he was mad. The rest were screened by Jarvis and rerouted to whoever they actually needed to go to- publicity, lawyers, Pepper, various assistants and charity departments whose only job was to make sure he never had to actually answer phone calls and talk to people. So the blare of his death metal ringtone was unexpected. 

‘’Who is it, Jarvis? And where’s my phone?’’

‘’Your phone is on the couch, sir. And the caller is Agent Barton." Jarvis paused for a moment, the camera whirring as it refocused on Tony, still messing with the scrap metal. "He seems to think it is quite urgent.’’

‘’Yeah, yeah, always bitching.’’ Tony flipped up his welding visor and wandered towards the couch. the phone was buried between cushions, and by the time he found it the call had gone to voicemail. The number was unfamiliar, the digits flashing on a background of Iron man red. Tony pressed redial and meandered back towards the welding table with the phone tucked under his visor. 

‘’What do you-‘’

‘’Tony! Just a bit of a problem- hang on-‘’ the sound of crashing and banging drowned out his voice for a moment. ‘’Can you buy my building? I’ve made a bit of a mess and- I didn’t get round to sorting the insurance… I mean- it’s not an expensive building- but I have tenants- I’ll text you the address?’’ Tony took a breath to reply and the phone beeped. 

‘’I believe he has hung up, sir.’’ 

‘’Thank you, Jarvis. Find out who owns his building and buy it. And keep an eye out for emergency calls to that address.’’

‘’Of course, sir.’’

~

The zen garden had been installed in the tower as an employee break room. The original design had been very basic, a few easy to care for plants that the cleaners could water a couple of times a week and would be fine mostly being ignored. Bruce had seen it on a plan when Tony had been talking about redoing some of the floors to Hulk-proof various gyms and labs, and immediately taken over. Over the past few years the garden had gone from the soulless, mostly empty, white walled space, to a riot of greens and flowers. Now there were plants spilling from baskets and pots all over the room, surrounding pockets of chairs and benches where the staff could actually relax, the sound of waterfalls and calming music filtering through hidden speakers. 

Clint did not visit the zen garden. Until five minutes ago, he hadn’t even known it existed. But the sound of soft music and the comfort of small spaces had called to him on his still-mostly-drunk wander through the halls, and now here he was, lying on the cool stone floor under a wicker bench, his headache pounding slightly less. 

Bruce was watering the plants with his mister when he found Clint. He spotted the feet and recognised the battered purple converse, kicking at them lightly and sitting on the bench. 

‘’What’s up, Clint?’’

‘’Headache- ugh’’

‘’Injury or self-inflicted?’’ Bruce grinned to himself at the groan he got in return. 

‘’Don’t drink with Tasha’’

‘’Thanks for the advice. Stay there, I’ll get you some water.’’

~

Steve had grown up above a bakery, the leftovers and scraps filling out his meagre diet throughout his childhood. When he had figured out he could afford to make the treats himself, he had taken to it with enthusiasm- bread, cakes, weird pastry concoctions, pies, tarts. He had stacks of recipe books in his apartment and a shelf full on the kitchen bookshelves. He liked the look of them, the colourful pictures of his bakery books mixed with Bruce’s cookery books from all over the world, Natasha’s trashy romances in tens of languages, Clint’s comics and the physics textbooks he seemed to read for fun, Tony’s scientific papers and robotics manuals, all intermingled on the shelves and tucked in to every corner of the kitchen.  
He was carrying a big cardboard box, full of the ingredients for his next bakery project. He could get the ingredients out of the shared kitchen, but he always felt greedy, taking so much butter or sugar or flour that others might need to use to make actual meals, just for his fancy baking. He decided to blame the box for the fact that he didn’t notice Clint until he was already in the kitchen. 

He didn't even realise Clint was there at first glance. The first thing he noticed was the mess. Batter, dripping down the sides of the worktops, forming puddles under the cupboards. Broken eggs and shells littering the counters, multiple bowls of unidentified gloop scattered around the whole kitchen. Clint was ignoring all of that, focusing his attention on the smoking waffle iron, patting out small flames licking up the sides of the machine with a burnt tea towel. 

‘’Clint! What happened?’’

‘’I was just making breakfast- can you fix it? You know this stuff-‘’

Clint stepped back as Steve nudged him out of the way and unplugged the waffle iron. He dumped the whole mess in the sink and turned to survey the rest of the disaster zone. 

‘’Get a cloth, Clint. I’ll make breakfast when it’s clean.’’

~

The gym was quiet at night. Not always empty, depending on who was coming back from missions in different time zones, or who had had a bad day, or just who had some extra fight in them. Clint didn’t sleep much, so the gym was a good place to hang out and waste some time until the coffee shop in the tower lobby opened at 6. The repetitive thud of someone hitting the punch bags echoed down the hallway leading to the gym, and Clint had a second to prepare himself for dealing with people before he walked through the doors. He hadn’t expected to see Steve, his shield discarded at his feet and his hands bare and bleeding against the bag. Blood marked the canvas, bright against the worn cream.  
Clint lent his bow case against the wall by the door and walked across the sparring mat, his feet light on the mat, careful to make enough noise that Steve would know where he was. Steve turned before Clint reached him, grabbing a cloth from the bench and wiping his hands clean.

‘’Couldn’t sleep?’’ His voice was loud in the quiet space, steady despite the way his hands were shaking as he cleaned his bloody knuckles. 

‘’Nah. On my way to the range.’’ Clint tipped his head back at his bow. ‘’What about you?’

‘’Just had a bit of energy to burn.’’ Steve looked down, not meeting Clint’s eyes. Clint gave him a second then turned away, heading for the mats.

‘’Want to spar?’’

Clint and Steve were led on their backs on the mat, breathing loud in the dark room, taking a rest after some very unevenly matched sparring when Natasha appeared. She nudged them both to their feet and at her nod, the three of them moved through the gym to the street scene/obstacle course, slipping in to practise mode, moving and out of view, Steve with his shield, Clint shooting suction tipped arrows, and Natasha throwing rubber knives. The first they knew of Tony’s arrival was when a beam of light tagged Natasha, illuminating her for just long enough for Clint to hit her with an arrow. Clint gave a quick thumbs up to the location of the light and they carried on. 

The four of them stopped some time in the small hours, lying on benches and mats around the gym, talking quietly, conversations about missions, memories, plans for the next day, things to practice when everyone was more alert... Bruce passed through on his way to check something in the lab, returning with tea and settling in. The buzz of sound was comforting, to all of them, enough sound to focus them out of their heads, just enough silence that they could rest. Clint let the waves of noise wash over him, leaning back against the weight rack and closing his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a comment if you liked it!


End file.
